Plein Air with Friends

Nothing like getting outdoors with friends and doing what comes naturally - painting!

I roam around Bucks County at least two times a week, loaded up with painting gear, hunting for that perfect landscape. The fact is that a good artist can find a good painting no matter where they look, so spending time looking for the perfect composition is wasted time - time that could be spent painting.  One of the artist's jobs is to rearrange the elements of the scene to MAKE it a better composition.

Sometimes a good exercise is to close your eyes, turn around a few times then open them. Then, create your painting from whatever happens to be in front of you. Do it enough and it will get you out of the habit of seeking that ready-made landscape.

This week the Bucks County Plein Air Painters visited one of Bucks County's covered bridges. The Loux Bridge is unusual in that it is white rather than red as are most of the others. Constructed in 1874 of hemlock, it sits over Cabin Run Creek.

The weather was perfect! We parked ourselves on the side of the road and spent the morning painting. My friends worked in oil, but I decided to try a small watercolor. I was working on Arches 140 lb. paper and am fairly happy with the way it turned out.

"Loux Covered Bridge, Bucks County" 9x12 watercolor

It sounded like a good idea at the time……..

One of the reasons I was interested in exploring pastel (aside from the fact that it was new to me) was because of my interest in plein air painting. And one of the things the plein air painter is always trying to do is to lighten the load. Since everything one uses must be carried, it behooves the artist to have as little equipment as possible.

With pastels, I thought, I can eliminate all the liquids that have to be carried with oils or watercolors. After all, fluids are heavy.

Silly me.

What I failed to take into account was the fact that by carrying only 5-6 tubes of color I can have full range of colors. But…… and this is a BIG BUT…….with pastels you must have dozens and dozens (even hundreds) of sticks, each a different color, in order to have a full range. And those sticks add up to a lot of weight.

And so it would seem to be a wash in the weight department. BUT……pastels are fast! Really fast! There is no drying time between layers of color or at the end, when you pack up.

So, I continue to explore pastels as a painting medium... and have started to exercise to build up some muscle……..

"Clear Day Today" 5x8  Just a sketch of a tree I see on my daily walk (exercise!).

Less is More...sometimes

How much information do you need to provide before the painting "reads" as the scene or object you were trying to convey?

I've been enjoying experimenting with my watercolors and making small, very loose pictures. In trying to keep everything loose and spontaneous I sometimes work from the opposite direction of my normal method. Instead of having a subject then painting it, I just make some marks and let the paint flow. Then I look and see what it suggests to me. A few details added and I'm done. It is great fun working that way, but can include a high percentage of failures....Oh, my aching ego!

Here's a couple of little abstracted landscapes with maximum fun and minimum detail. The subjects suggested themselves after I randomly applied the strokes to the paper. Then I deliberately painted shapes to bring out my subject matter. Color has a strong pull for me and all day the cool blues I was using kept suggesting winter and snow.

Snowbound   5x7  

Rock Pattern Study  5x7

*Tip: 

If you'd like to try this, brush clear water onto part of the paper, pick colors you like, and brush them onto the wet and dry areas. Passages will be soft and diffused where the paper is wet, and sharp where the paper is dry.

Use different brush sizes, maybe even flick on a little color on and watch what happens. 

Let it dry a bit while you study what you have, and see if the shapes and colors suggest anything. If they don't, play a little more. 

When the paper is dry you can begin to emphasize shapes and colors in order to push the forms toward what you see in your mind's eye.

It's like walking on a tightrope, so don't be surprised if you fall off.....a lot.....but the more you do it, the better you will get.

Watercolor Play

Decided to drag out my watercolors and do some small paintings this week. They are almost like color sketches and are looser than my oils. Very liberating! When I go back to the oils I hope to carry over some of that looseness and intuitive way of working.

"Little House on the Rocks"  watercolor   4x6

"Mid Winter Snow"   watercolor   7x9

"Outbuildings"   watercolor   7x9

Visit to the Big City

Just picked up a couple of paintings at the Salmagundi Club in New York City. They were submitted to the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club Annual Members Show (now that's a mouthful) and hung at the club for several weeks.

Getting in and out of the city was easier than I thought it would be, not painful at all, and the visit to an environment much different from what I am used to was stimulating! But, it did make me appreciate where I do live at lot more!

Vanishing Woodlands - 20x24  oil on canvas

Blustery Day - 20x24  oil on canvas

Spring Means New Challenges

I've been entering a few competitions lately. Sometimes I get in, sometimes I don't. But each time I get a little more comfortable with the process. Though I have been working mainly in oils I decided to enter the National Society for Painters in Casein and Acrylic's annual juried show. Sent my CD with the digital image in yesterday. We'll see if anything comes of it.....

"What I Did On My Summer Vacation - Thumb Butte, AZ"   11x15  acrylic

Tip: When using acrylics, if you want to paint a large area of uniform color (like my sky, here) you will need to mix up a large amount before you begin to paint it. Acrylics dry so fast that if you mix as you go (like I usually do) you will wind up with spotty passages of color since it will be almost impossible to blend.

Time to get out of my rut!

Occasionally, I find myself falling into ruts. So sometimes I must take action to break out!

#1. I adore landscape and the natural format for that is a horizontal one. I find it hard to remember the last time I did a vertical. I will step out of that comfort zone and do a landscape painting, but use a vertical format.

#2. Most of my skies are in the medium to light value range. I have it stuck in my head that a dark sky means twilight or night. I will use a dark intense value scheme, but still try to convey that it is in full sun.

#3. I have a very difficult time conveying a feeling of size or "bigness" when working in a small format. So I will try to convey a feeling of something enormous, even though I am working on a small canvas.

I'm very happy with the way it turned out and feel like I have new "arrows in my quiver" when it comes to landscape painting.  What do you think?

"Monumental"  12x16  oil on canvas

Reflections

When I was a little girl, it was my job to polish my mother's silver tea service for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. This is her sugar bowl and painting it brought back many memories.

Reflections on metal are fascinating. Silver is painted much darker than you would think and the best way I have found is to forget what you are looking at and simply paint the colors you see. Tip: Turn off the left side of your brain and give free rein to the right.

Works for me!

Sugar Bowl and Rose   6"x6"

Planning for Winter

The weather has turned and rather than spend those days when plein air is not possible working totally from sketches/photos/memory, I am going to rediscover still life (subject matter that I haven't visited very often in the last few years). I have set up a corner with a light, various fabrics for draping, and have started a collection of different objects to paint, including some crocheted doilies that have been in the family for a while.

I seem to gravitate toward kitchen objects at the moment, and I like to raid the refrigerator for fruits and vegetables.

The little 6" x 6" painting below is a Granny Smith that pleased my eye. After I was done painting, I ate it and it was delicious!

Granny Smith    6x6

Welcome Autumn!

When the weather turns cool I feel the need to paint in oranges, golds, and browns. My favorite time of the year urges me to head for the woods paint the glories of Autumn. When I can't get out, I bring the harvest to me in the form of pumpkins, gourds, Indian corn, and mums.

I never tire of their beauty and variety!

Autumn Still LIfe   oil on canvas  12 x 16

A Moment in Time

Conventional wisdom by conventional artists says that morning light is cool and afternoon light is warm. But the other morning, as I started out on my morning walk, I hadn't even gotten out of the driveway before I was stopped in my tracks by the light shining on a group of tree trunks. They were lit with an intense reddish light that was made all the more dramatic by the cool blues in the mist shrouded background.
I couldn't get it out of my head and so I painted it as best I could. I wish I could paint with light instead of pigments so that everyone could see what I saw.

September Morning Light   16" x 20"

Sometimes conventional wisdom needs to be ignored.......

I've got four hours....so paint!

Hiking in Trexler Nature Preserve is always a balm to the soul. This painting is done from sketches and photos taken on the trail. Deep summer is SO green....but there are a thousand different greens. I recently read that the human eye can see 10,000 different colors. How marvelous!! I will bite my tongue the next time I am tempted to complain about the color "monotony" of a scene.

Initial sketch in yellow ochre on a toned canvas.

After two hours of painting.

After four hours of painting.

At the two hour point things slowed down considerably. When I reach that point in a painting decisions become more critical, and so I become more careful. I put the painting away and let it "rest" overnight. Next day I studied it again (with fresh eyes), made a mark here or there, then signed it. Done!

The painting is 16" x 20".

Earthquakes, Hurricanes and Flooding, Oh My!

I made it back safe from Alaska (no problems coming back) and what do I find when I get home? First, an earthquake. Then, a hurricane. Cleanup from the flooding is going to delay me painting so many of the wonderful landscape scenes I encountered on my visit north.

I did sneak off for a few hours to paint a quick sky study and decided to see how close in value and how neutral in color I could make it and still have it "read" well. I tend to go for bolder colors and values that range from 1 - 10, so I thought this would be a good exercise for me. Did I succeed?

Grey Day Above    9" x 12"

Painting Turnagain Arm

Painted along Turnagain Arm today and was glad I didn't meet up with the black bear up the trail that several hikers encountered throughout the day. Lucky for all of us the bear turned tail whenever he saw anybody. I was in the same spot, morning through afternoon, and though I heard some noises I never actually saw the bear.
Several people stopped to watch me paint. All were courteous and encouraging.

Glorious weather, quiet painting time to myself. A good day!

Along Turnagain Arm they have some of the strongest and fastest bore tides ever.

Todays painting from the same spot as the photo.  9"x12"

Framing: this Artist's Bane

Wall of frames: be afraid, be very afraid......

Why can't someone invent a Universal Frame? I'm not talking about size. I'm talking about a frame that looks good on whatever style of artwork you put it around and doesn't cost an arm and a leg! Perhaps the only part I hate about painting is having to frame the thing. And yet I know that if you choose the wrong frame you can effectively kill a painting, so care must be taken.

When I was in college I often just "stripped" the paintings (nailed thin strips of wood to the outer edges). It was cheap, I could do it myself, and it went fine with the strange, abstract, and odd things we were required to create in order to get that degree. But the kinds of things I am doing now need more than that, and I would rather be painting than sawing and nailing frames together.

Custom framing (even with my 60% off coupon) is out of the question, so I haunt art stores looking for frames on sale and comb the internet (always a risk since you can't actually touch the frame and computer colors can lie). I also recycle frames that I already have. Paintings of the same size going to competitions at different times can wear the same frame, but for a big show where all your works are exhibited this doesn't work. Right now I have approximately 25 paintings sitting around waiting for a frame of their own.

My latest foray has been to frame my painting, "Heart of the Mill", that is off to a competition. It was the usual agony and the results were only adequate, I couldn't afford spectacular.

I have no solution except to soldier on. But if someone ever invents a Universal Frame they should get in touch with me. I'll buy a few!!

An Image of the Mill

Heart of the Mill   14 x18

Here's my entry into the "Images of the Mill" competition. Though I think most will portray a distinctive tall red building that is on the mill grounds I was struck by the sun hitting an old millstone leaning against the side of the mill house. It created a formal composition of basic shapes that captured me. The rocks beneath the stucco seem visually complicated until you just think of them as spots of color. Forget what you are looking at and put down the spots. When you are done it will be a rock wall.

Detail: Heart of the Mill

Now to find a frame!

Keep It Soft

The Clouds Roll In  8x10

Hay Days  8x10

 

Evening Falls  8x10

I have grown more interested in atmospheric effects as of late. Most of my works were concerned with the landscape and its varied appearances, but lately I have started to look up and see how interesting the sky can be.

I, also, have always painted in terms of sharp contrast and strong color. So with these three little studies I set out to keep the paintings soft and undefined for as long as possible. How much information can you convey without getting specific?

It turns out, quite a lot! These little paintings were done, almost exclusively, with a #10 flat brush. Only at the finish did I use a small round brush (#2) to make a few small lines and to sign my name.

*Tip: As long as you keep the edges soft, it is easy to make changes and suggest shapes. As soon as you put down a hard edge, you "pin it down". But, if a painting is all soft edges it can look mushy, and all hard edges can get boring. So beware of going too far in one direction or the other.

I Got an Award!

Kennesaw Pair    9"x12"

This weekend I entered this painting into an art show in the area and got an" Honorable Mention"! I'm so encouraged and wish I could paint all day, but......every time I put something down I lose it and this lets me know that the clutter has gotten so bad around here that it is beginning to act as camouflage. So today I clean up, then tomorrow I will paint. I always feel more relaxed and creative when my studio is straightened up anyway.

Maybe next time it a blue ribbon.

Plein Air in Carversville

I and three friends from the workshop that I recently took traveled to Carversville, PA and we spent a morning and part of the afternoon painting and enjoying the out of doors. We stopped to eat lunch at the General Store and had such a pleasant day we are going back again next week.

First order of business, Gather up all the gear. Pochade box, paints, brushes, medium, tripod, chair (if I need it. I usually paint standing), dry carriers, and camera. What you don't see is my big hat and sunblock (essential!).

We met in town, scoped out the area, and found lots of painting material.

Streams and woods.

A stone bridge crossing the stream.

A heavily backlit red barn.

Ok,ok,.....I know everybody and his brother has painted a red barn. But, the building adds structure to the chaos of nature and I like the backlighting. Never tried that before.

So I painted it!

In 1 1/2 hours I gathered enough info to paint a larger work if I wanted to, and though the shapes are somewhat awkward, it was the light I was concerned with and I am happy with what I learned.

No, she's not doing a painting of the back of her car.

When you can find a spot where you can use the back of your car as a taboret it is luxury plein air! Having a hatchback works great, too.    *Tip:You can actually paint in the rain with canvas and paints in the back, while you stand under the hatchback door.....unless you are super tall.

Painting the back of the Carversville Inn.

The light on a stone bridge was dramatic.

   In the afternoon the bugs descended and all the Off! in the world couldn't keep them away, but all in all, not a bad day!!

Northeastern Waterfall

You may think I labored over this painting....but I didn't!

You may think there's a lot of detail....But there's not!

I completed the painting (it's only 10" x 10") in three short sessions of 1-2 hrs over two days.


Everything was scrubbed in very fast and loose. Then later, I became a little more circumspect and carefully added some highlights.

That's all, the paint did the work.



Here are steps:

Quick sketch to show major shapes and areas of value.

Major darks scrubbed in. This and the next two photos are actually much lighter than they look in real life.
The camera kept lightening everything up, seeking a middle value for the photo (it thought it was helping me). It wasn't until the final photo that I discovered that by focusing on half painting and half white sheet of paper, then moving to the whole painting without refocusing, I could trick the camera and get the photo to look more like the actual color values (guess I need to learn more about digital cameras).


Live and learn....

Strengthening the darks and greens. Still loosey goosey.

Now, I slow down and start to add some lights.  I am thinking about what hue, value, and intensity are needed to make some parts come forward and others to recede.
Though the water looks white, it isn't. I haven't touched it yet with highlights.

I usually (but not always) work from top to bottom. You can see that the top looks much more finished than the painting further down.

From this point on I was adding only highlights (remember the dark areas were actually much darker than show in this photo).

And the results!


Once I had put in the sunlit water the sky looked much too dark, so I mixed up a lighter blue and restated the sky.